A Letter of Advice
by Jezabel Maphton
Summary: Sam secretly takes up a job on the school’s website in the AdviceColumn. She learns a lot about the students at the school and their problems. But what happens when she finds out a little too much about someone she thought she knew all about?Updated511
1. Prologue Chapter

I am re-uploading the chapters edited because my hard rive was wiped clean somehow over the summer, and this story was lost. I didn't remember all the points I hit originally, so I'm editing the first two chaps to my liking… yeah. Sorry it took so long, whatever!

Um... This is very VERY short compared to how I usually write chapters, so, just if any of you are interested, the future chapters will be way longer than this!

Disclaimer- Lets just say, if I did own Danny Phantom, I'd be sitting in a swimming pool full of grape jello with a fort in the middle...

Love my beta-reader; Nom de Plume.

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**A Letter of Advice**

When your friends come to you for advice, you usually listen to the situation, and try to do your best with what they're telling you. Their problem is either resolved, or you keep trying to help until it's fixed. But when you're in my situation, well, it's never just that simple.

The people asking advice don't even know who you are, and they don't even know if they should listen or not. Whether you're really out seeking revenge, or simply trying to help someone in need. I could go either way, but I won't.

It wasn't until recently that I found out that you never know what people are going to ask. When you think you have problems, and then you hear what other people are going through, you start to feel kinda bad.

But what's worse is when you have someone you've basically known your entire life, seeking advice from you, and they don't know it. When they confess something that they would never tell you to your face in a million years. And, yet, you have to act like you don't know.

Well, that's the situation I'm in now.

You're probably confused, and don't know what I'm talking about. Well, you're about to find out, but it's a long story, so I suggest you get comfortable, you're in for a ride.

_It was a Monday morning, and everything seemed to be going as it always had, until..._

"Hey, Sam?"

Sam Manson turned around when hailed, to come face-to-face with her best friend's older sister, Jazz.

She wasn't someone Sam was afraid to be seen with; quite the reverse. But Jazz didn't talk to her that much in school. She was a smart girl, and she was pretty. In-between being popular and a geek, if that's at all possible. Yet, she was the nicest girl Sam knew at this school.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I was wondering if I could ask you something?"

"Sure," she said, shrugging.

"Would you be interested in a job on the new school website I'm setting up? It doesn't have to be anything hard, you can choose!"

"Uh, Jazz? Why are you asking _me_ this?" Sam asked, with a small laugh in her voice. "I'm the anti-social goth that wants nothing to do with school spirit in any way, shape or form. Why would I want a job on the school's website? "

"I dunno, I just wanted some people who actually think and have an opinion to help me run it. I've only gotten one application that I like, and a handful of others I'd rather not discuss."

The two laughed at that.

"But, I thought you might want to know, the only person up for the job in the advice column is Paullina.," Jazz told her slyly. "And on her application, she suggested a whole page dedicated to the one and only Danny Phantom. She said that the love of her life deserv- "

"Alright already!" Sam told her. "The only advice Paullina has is for people to get rich and pretty and it'll solve all their problems! And with the popular factor, everyone will try to listen to her. Urg! We'll end up with a bunch of little Paullina clones running around, with nothing better to do than to try to be like everyone else around them!"

"That's why I don't want to give her the job; I had someone else in mind, " Jazz told her, smiling.

"Oh, oh no! I am not going to do it."

"And why not?"

"No one will listen to me, even if I do give them the right advice."

"Why wouldn't they listen to you?"

"Are you suddenly blind, Jazz? Or are you trying to aggravate me?"

"Neither. The writer of the advice column is anonymous. No one will know who you are."

"Point." She said bluntly.

"And if worst comes to worst, you can just give someone a sarcastic comment back. As long as it's relevant. It's better than nothing."

Well, she had a point. And as much as Sam wanted to deny it, she did give good advice at times. No question, better than Paullina's. If anyone did listen to her, she could make a difference in their lives…. Sorta. After all, if she didn't take the job, who would?

"So, you want it?"

Well? Did she want it? She could say what she wanted to these people, and they wouldn't even know it was her. Plus, she'd get karma points for helping out…

"Sure."

Jazz inwardly cheered "Okay, well, just fill this out," she handed her a single sheet of paper, "and give it to me by the end of the day."

"Why do I have to fill out an application if you just said you were going to give me the job?"

"I dunno. Just felt like it."

_It started out as simple as that…_

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Now... Click the blue button! C'mon! Click it and tell me what you think!

-Constructive criticism is welcome!

Jeza


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom belongs to the all powerful Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon studios. I wonder if they'd give it to me for my B-day... Doubt it!

Love my beta-reader; Nom de Plume.

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Chapter 1

"Okay, so this is harder than I thought it was gonna be…"

It was now two days since Sam had agreed to be the advice columnist, and she had received her first question, under her alias "Casual Wanderer". (It had taken her a while to come up with that name; she didn't want anything that sounded too goth)

So she sat there, reading the question over a few times, trying to come up with advice for 'OverShadowed', who'd written:

_Whenever I seem to get a good idea to help someone or something, someone always has to end up ruining it in some way. Either by accident or on purpose. And if it doesn't end up ruined, someone else gets the glory, and I'm told I could learn something from them! So… what should I do?_

Sam leaned back in her computer chair, trying to think of what to say to this person. Trying to see if she had any personal experiences that could somehow relate to this. When you're giving advice, you want to know what you'd do in the situation in question; If you've gone through something similar, you have a better point of view; because it either went well, or not, and you learn from your past experiences.

The one thought that came to her was of her 'Save the Frogs' movement, back at the beginning of freshman year—the popular crowd got the credit for that. But she didn't really care; what was important was that what she had wanted to happen, happened. Even if she hadn't gotten the recognition.

_Knock knock_

She was pulled out of her thoughts and automatically clicked off of the web page, pulling up a random website. Turning around, she saw that the sound was coming from her window, so she stood up and walked over towards it, already knowing who it was.

It didn't surprise her that he was there. She was actually more-or-less expecting him. Danny always came over to her house to hang out whenever he was bored or just didn't want to be home. She wondered what they'd be talking about tonight; she needed something to distract her from her new 'job'. She loved her time with Danny; he had no idea how much it meant to her.

"So, what's the occasion?" she asked as she opened her window, letting her friend in.

He sighed. "Jazz won't stop talking about the website she put up for the school. It's really driving me crazy." He laughed lightly as he turned back into human form, landing on his feet. "So, what are 'ya up to?" he asked, noticing her computer was on.

"Oh, nothing much, just, surfing the Web, I guess. Nothing I can't do some other time," she told him, walking over and turning off the monitor.

She sat down in her chair and spun it around to face him. "Anything you wanna talk about?" she asked him.

He shrugged, sitting on her bed and leaning against one of the bed posts. "Eh, nothing really, I just wanted to get out of the house. I told Jazz I had to patrol."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. Nothing's out right now, so I thought since I didn't want to go back home, I'd come over and bug you," he joked, smiling at her.

Her heart melted with that smile. He came over to bug her? He could almost never bug her, not unless he did something she really didn't appreciate, like asking Paullina out… something like that. But she could never stay mad at him for long. She couldn't stand it when they couldn't talk, it was like torture…

"Sam? Anyone in there?" he joked again.

She snapped out of her zone-out and turned to face him.

"You came to bug me, huh? And what exactly are you going to do in order to accomplish that?" she challenged, crossing her arms over her chest, and leaning her computer chair back a little. A smirk appeared on her face.

Danny smiled and laughed lightly "Actually…." He gasped as a wisp of blue air escaped his lips. He sighed and lowered his shoulders. "Great…"

He stood up and transformed back into his ghost self. "Wanna come with? I don't think it'll be anything big." Danny suggested.

"Sure. I have nothing better to do." She stood up and walked over to him.

He grabbed her hand and turned them intangible, flying them through her ceiling and setting her down on the flat rooftop.

Looking around, they saw nothing. Both jumped slightly when they heard a faint thunder. Turning their faces to the sky, they saw the flash up in the clouds, and thunder once again followed.

Sam flinched when she felt slight moisture on her face. She reached her hand up and touched the spot she felt wet, and seconds later more small drops came down.

It was a light rain, with little wind. It was… nice. It was also the first rain since the school year had started.

Taking in a deep breath, Sam smiled up at the sky. When she looked to her side, she saw Danny staring at her.

Blushing slightly, she spoke. "It's refreshing, isn't it?"

He grinned at her. "Yeah, but it'd be better if I knew what ghost set my sense off."

And as if on cue, a shout of "Beware" was heard behind them.

_Way to ruin a moment!_

Danny and Sam turned to see the familiar form of the Box Ghost. Sighing heavily, Danny pulled out the Fenton Thermos and sucked him in it before he could even blink— or say something idiotic.

Danny laughed nervously, raking one of his hands through his hair. "Wanna head back inside? We don't want to catch a cold." He put his hand out for Sam to take so he could take them back inside.

She was about to grasp it when there was an ecto-plasmic blast from their right. Neither saw it coming.

It hit Danny in the side and Sam started to go towards him when a familiar form flew past her, not even noticing she was there.

"Hey, ghost! You'd better watch yourself, now that I'm back," Valerie shouted at him.

Valerie had a new and improved suit, thanks to Technus. Now she could transform into her ghost hunting suit, just as Danny could change from ghost to human. She had only attacked Danny once since gaining it. It had actually been a while since they'd seen her, so they hadn't expected her to randomly start fighting them.

"Look, I really don't want to fight you," Danny tried to reason.

She laughed. "You've had this coming, ghost!" she said as she once again fired at him.

Danny dodged the blast, and gave Sam a look that said 'Get out of here!' She nodded slightly and went down the stairs connected to the roof. Sliding down the banisters to get down faster, she soon found herself downstairs. She ran out in front to see that the fight was still going on, and that the rain had gotten heavier from the last time she was outside,—which wasn't that long ago; she was still wet.

Sam saw Valerie looking around as Danny suddenly disappeared. She pushed a button on her arm that caused weird spectacle-like things to cover her eyes. She searched around for him and fired her ecto-gun once more; hitting him and shocking him out of invisibility.

He clutched his side where she had hit him twice, now, and fired an ectoplasmic ray at a tree's branches, causing them to fall on Valerie where she floated on her board.

Sam took this time to make herself known to him. She waved him over to where she hid by some shrubbery, just managing to get Danny hidden before the ghost hunter got herself out of the branches and leaves.

"Danny, change back," Sam reminded him.

He nodded and did so, but the bright blue light that surrounded him seemed to draw Valerie's attention, and she moved closer, putting the special lenses over her eyes once more, to see if the light was Phantom, and not just her imagination.

Danny and Sam stood still, doing their best not to be seen by the huntress. Thunder and lightning went off once more and illuminated the scenery in which they hid. Luckily for them, Valerie had turned away and moved to leave, convinced her prey was elsewhere.

Only after she left, did Danny and Sam realize the position they were in. Danny had pushed Sam against one of the many trees, and had pushed himself against her, to make their appearance less noticeable. He was facing away from her, looking around the tree to see if Valerie was out of sight.

And as soon as he turned back to Sam, both their faces turned bright red at how close they were. He didn't move; their eyes locked, and they seemed to be lost in each other.

The thunder sounded above and it seemed to break the trance they were both in.

Danny moved away from her fast and turned his burning face away from hers. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, Sam."

"Yeah…" she agreed quietly.

He simply nodded and went running off. Seconds later he noticed he was going the wrong direction, and turned to go the right way, waving as he went ghost and flew off towards his house.

Sam laughed to herself, and left out a sigh, before smiling and heading back into her house.

As soon as she got inside, the rain seemed to slow and light wind was heard going through the trees outside. Sam still had a smile on her face when she got in her room and went to close the window Danny had flown in through less than an hour ago.

She changed into her pajamas and sat once again in her computer chair as she turned the monitor back on and pulled up the web page she had been on earlier.

Re-reading the message, she began to type.

_Dear OverShadowed,_

_As the old song goes, we can't always get what we want. There are always going to be people and things standing in our ways, and we can't let them stop us. Just keep trying, and eventually you'll get the credit you deserve, and it'll be something to be proud of. Keep your hopes up, and don't let anyone get you down!_

_Sincerely,_

_Casual Wanderer_

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R&R!


	3. Chapter Two

Um... don't kill me? My computer was somehow wiped clean of all Microsoft files and this story was lost. I forgot how the story was going, so I edited the first two chapters to make them fit to my new plan! Very minor changes, you probably won't even notice if you re-read them.

Disclaimer—If I owned _Danny Phantom_, I would be long dead from all the angry fans stoning me for letting Nick cancel it...

Love my beta-reader; Nom de Plume.

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Chapter 2

It had been a day since Sam had last talked to Danny. He's been avoiding talking to her since their… predicament. She didn't understand why;, more awkward things had happened between the two before, and nothing really seemed to change between them. Why now?

Questions buzzed through her head as she closed her locker. Jazz was standing behind the door, so when it closed Sam jumped back a foot or two.

"Gosh, Jazz! You scared me half to death!" Sam exclaimed.

"Sorry, but you seemed to be spacey." Jazz paused "Why are you being spacey?"

"I don't know...It's just... never mind, it's nothing really important." She shrugged and started to walk away.

"If it's about Danny, I've been noticing it too," Jazz said, trying to stop her.

It seemed to work, because as soon as she said Danny's name, Sam stopped in her tracks and turned towards her, one eyebrow raised.

_So I'm not crazy..._

"What about Danny?" she questioned, trying to sound innocent.

"Sam, don't play dumb with me; you know what I'm talking about. Is there something I need to know? As a concerned older sister, I mean."

Sam sighed "Jazz, don't worry." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "There's nothing I know that you don't know of already."

"So, you don't know either?"

"Not a clue," she said, leaning back on the lockers with a sigh.

"And I thought I was out of the loop."

"There's a loop?"

"Sam..."

"Look, I just. I don''t know." She put her head back and dropped her shoulders. "He's just... he seems more distant since what happened Wednesday, and—" Sam would have mentally slapped herself if Jazz hadn't cut her off.

"What happened Wednesday?" Jazz, asked.

"Nothing important, but—"

"Well, Sam, apparently it _is_ important if that's when he started acting strange," she reasoned. "What is it?"

She hesitated. Was this something she wanted to tell Jazz? I mean, she could jump to some random conclusions that made no sense or something, and it could end up being the total opposite of what the problem actually was. Still, though, it might not hurt to tell her. Even if it seemed like the hardest thing to say to Sam at this point. "Jazz... I—"

_BBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIII**IIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG**_

_Saved by the bell! Wow... Never thought I'd say that. Well, think that._

"I'll talk to you later, Jazz," Sam said as she ran towards her first period classroom.

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It had taken all day, but she finally did it. Just minutes after the bell rang, her arms crossed over her chest, Sam stared at the uneasy looking Danny before her.

"Look, Danny, I know there's something going on here. Now tell! Come 'on! I'm your best friend, you know you can trust me," Sam told him, throwing her hand up to emphasize her point.

"Sam, it's..." He paused, thinking. "It's nothing, really," Danny told her, looking everywhere around her but her eyes.

"Danny, if it's nothing, then why are you acting so... weird?"

"Weird? Who's acting weird?" he asked, now looking nervous. "Speaking of weird, what with the weather? I mean, it was raining one day, and now it all sun—"

"Danny, stop changing the topic. Just, please tell me what's going on?"

He looked to be considering answering her, opening and closing his mouth. "I have to go," he told her, walking off, doing a double-take of her as he passed by.

She turned around and watched him walk off, getting an exasperated look on her face as she did so. _I guess he decided against it..._

What was wrong with him? And why was he being so fidgety around her? It didn't make any sense.

_The last time I saw him acting like this, he was convinced he was crazy and seeing ghosts that weren't there... He's being so paranoid; I wonder what's causing it._

"Urg! Why does everything have to be confusing in my life?" she asked, putting her fisted hands in her hair. She sighed. "If it were something really, really important, he'd tell me, right?"

If it were a ghost problem, they'd all know about it. They'd see him fighting it, or he'd be tired whenever she saw him. Danny could handle pretty much any ghost that was fighting him, and if he knew he couldn't do something alone, they'd find a way to help him. But, he wasn't tired like he would be if it was ghost trouble, so that couldn't be it.

The sky turned to overcast as Sam started to walk home and continued to think. It would be a while before she got her answer.

Danny always told Sam and Tucker everything, so why would it be different now? Even if it was something huge that she didn't want them to know about, one of them always got it out of him...

"Tucker." She stopped walking.

If she didn't know, that meant Tucker must know, right? _What would Danny tell Tucker that he couldn't tell me..?_

She cupped her chin in her hand, thinking. _I got nothing... Must be guy stuff..._

Sam shrugged and continued walking. If not knowing was still bothering her tomorrow, she'd ask Tucker.

But, still, she worried for her friend. What if he was having problems at home? No. Jazz would have mentioned it to Sam when they conversed today. There was always that little possibility, though, that it would've slipped her mind... No. There were never any problems with the Fentons... besides the whole Santa thing, and that was just strange. But that wouldn't explain why he was being so distant.

He wasn't depressed; Sam would have been able to tell. But there was something else on his mind. The way he kept avoiding talking, changing the subject, breaking mid-sentence to think. There was definiely something he was thinking hard about. He even did a double-take of her.

_But why?_

Feeling suddenly cold, she wrapped her arms around herself before she walked up her front steps, through the door, and up to her room, without looking to see if anyone was home.

Closing her bedroom door, she threw her backpack by her bed, and kicked her shoes off as she walked towards her computer desk, turning it on as she sat down.

Why was Danny acting this way around her? Maybe… if it was a guy thing, he'd be acting the same way around Valerie? She was their friend too, after all.

She tried to think back to see if Danny had interacted with Valerie over the past few days.. He had, she remembered.

_Val caught him in the hall to talk to him..._ She paused, trying to remember further. '_He had a look of relief when he saw it was her...and not me, I guess... but he still broke off his conversation with her pretty fast._'

She typed in her password. She would be automatically sent to her inbox when the desktop loaded fully.

_So it has to be a guy thing._ She went back to her previous thoughts _If he's this way around me, Valerie, even Jazz, it has to be, right?_

She sighed and sunk into her computer chair as she sighed in frustration.

"You need to not think about this right now," she told herself. "Now, let's see what our crazy people need help with today." She laughed at that.

More people seemed to be asking her for advice. Her first person must've spread around that she helped or something. Because now she was getting questions left and right.. Just that morning, before school, she'd got four. She smiled to herself.

She was doing a way better job than Paullina could have!

_Take THAT, Miss. I-can-do-anything-in-the-universe-and-get-praise-for-it!_

There were six new messages. _I guess I'm not the only one who goes off homework assignments in computers…_

Within ten minutes she read every one of them and sent it back to their owners. But just as she was about to sign off, she received another.

She read the person's username to herself and automatically knew who it was from..

GHOSTH8R

_Since last year, I've had this... problem with someone. A grudge, if you will. But as of late, I seem to just be after them out of habit, not really because I want to. I don't think I could just drop it, because I still feel that they have issues, but I don't feel like I'm the one to keep after him._

Her jaw dropped. This was too perfect! She could just tell her to quit it, and Danny would be free of the huntress forever. But just telling her to stop was too blunt and might make her suspicious.

Bright light broke her concentration as her curtains flew open to reveal the shinning sun where overcast had just been. She got up from her chair and closed the window and drapes before returning to computer to reply to Valerie's message.

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